Penetration Testing For Dummies

Introduction

Welcome to Penetration Testing For Dummies! It is my goal to start you down the path to learning more about pen testing and why it’s such a hot topic for anyone interested in information technology security. This book shows you how to target, test, analyze, and report on security vulnerabilities with pen testing tools.

I break down the most complex of topics into easily digestible chunks that familiarize you with the details of conducting a pen test, but also why you need to do it and how the hackers you are trying to access your systems are doing so. Your purpose as a pen tester is to test systems, identify risks, and then mitigate those risks before the hackers do.

It takes a person with hacking skills to look for the weaknesses that make an organization susceptible to hacking. The topics in this book aim to equip IT professionals at various levels with the basic knowledge of pen testing.

About This Book

One of my main goals in writing this book is to give you an understanding of the different attacks, vectors, vulnerabilities, patterns, and paths that hackers use to get into your network and systems. Pen testing is intended to follow those same steps, so security pros know about them (and can fix or monitor them) before the hackers do.

For this book, I use a Windows workstation and where I must, I use Linux tools run from a virtual machine. I have chosen this because this is where many beginners are likely to start their pen testing journey. For this book, you ...